Guestward Ho

Cable to actor from his Manhattan agent:DON'T LAUGH. HAVE FIRM OFFER FOR TARZAN.

Cable to agent from actor: NOTLAUGHING. I ACCEPT.

And so the actor wound up his assignment in a George Hamilton movie in Munich and returned to the U.S. He had already done a few TV stints of the Tarzan stripe: one commercial, an episode on Batman, three stints on Bewitched. The Tarzan role was typical: he played Brigadier Sir Basil Bertram, a blimpish general.

He did so well that he was invited back as Sir Basil in two succeeding Tarzan segments--and then it seemed as if every TV producer in Hollywood was after this new property. He appeared in guest shots on Daniel Boone, Red Skelton and Pat Boone's syndicated interview show. In high style, he played the heavy last week on / Spy.

The actor is Maurice Evans, 66, who for three decades has been a first-rank interpreter of Shakespeare and Shaw, co-starring with Dame May Whitty, Katharine Cornell, Judith Anderson and Helen Hayes. What is he doing playing opposite Adam West in Batman? Evans concedes that the TV scripts are sometimes "ridiculous" and the casts hardly top drawer. There are physical hazards, too. In Marrakesh, while filming / Spy, a street urchin stole his arch supports! On the Tarzan set in Mexico, his pants were singed in a fire, and he got cut and bruised clambering up a cliff.

Nor does he do it for the money alone, which comes to about $5,000 a segment. The tropical TV locations make it all a working vacation. "When you reach the sere and yellow stage," as Evans sums it up,"why not? There is so little fun left elsewhere today. Broadway is so anxious, so grim."

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